EN-FR / July-August 2023

French President Macron suggests fines for parents of rioting youths. (Al Jazeera English, July)

As the journalist from Al Jazeera correctly says in this video, such fines would require a new law. But such a law would be unconstitutional because the general principle in French legislation is that you and no one else are criminally responsible for your acts. A fine is a criminal penalty, therefore a fine cannot ignore the principle; but a fine to parents of a criminal kid would ignore the principle. The possibility to engage parents’ responsibility in the trial of a minor already exists, actually, but it is a civil liability for torts, not a criminal responsibility for crimes, what it can never be according to the principle. The civil liability of parents can be claimed by victims, so the state itself could only claim it as a victim, if such a thing is conceivable at all, but not as a prosecuting and fine-imposing authority.

(Pour plus d’éléments en français à ce sujet, voyez Law 37, à « Émeutes et responsabilité du fait d’autrui ».)

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Lawmakers as Ballot-Grubbers

U.S. Lawmakers Warn Pro-Khalistan Forces; Lash Out At ‘Racist’ Attack On Indian Embassy. (Hindustan Times, July)

These U.S. congressmen are ridiculous; they are not judges, justice after wrongdoing is not their responsibility. Prosecution is not either. What are they talking about, then? There is nothing they can do, yet they are reported talking. Do they think Indians or Americans of Indian origin can be paid lip service and that is good enough? If these legislators’ talking could have any kind of institutional leverage, that would be a breach of the separation of powers. And they cannot even pass a law against Hinduphobia specifically, for that would be legislative discrimination.

“I won’t tolerate this or that, so vote for me.” You should vote for these people as judges, not as congressmen. As congressmen, they cannot pass laws that give extra protection to Indian consulates and other Indian interests in the U.S. They cannot target Khalistani militants either, as speech is constitutionally protected in the United States, including advocacy of violence and of other illegal conduct. All these congressmen are doing is slyly entertaining the unrealistic fancies of a communitarian lobby.

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The Industry of Defilement

Sex Scene Involving Bhagavad Gita Sparks ‘Hinduism Under Attack’ Debate In India. A scene in the movie shows Oppenheimer reading the Bhagavad Gita while having sex. Uday Mahurkar, Information Commissioner with the Government of India, questioned how the epic got certification with this scene. (Hindustan Times)

Against the approval by the Board of Film Certification of a profanatory scene, insulting religious feelings, made by degenerate and callous Westerners, the Information Commissioner has the right sense of duty. Besides, the scene in question is, according to Sec. 295 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), defilement of a sacred object in flagrante delicto. The film director and producers are subject to citizen’s arrest if they set foot on Indian soil: Any Indian citizen may arrest them and defer them to the police immediately.

Not only did the Board fail to bring this scene to the authorities’ attention for insult to religious feelings (a crime under Sec. 295 IPC), but it approved it. This scene is a crime in flagrante delicto, defilement of a sacred Hindu object by callous and dastardly felons. The penalty for these criminals is up to 4 years in prison. Change Indian law if you are not happy with it, but at this juncture the Indian administration is remiss for approving such heinous pestilence. The least we can ask of the authorities is that they apply the laws they have been elected to apply, since, in India as in Europe, the cancellation of such laws regarding speech is never on political platforms. I will see to it that they enforce the laws they are so fond of. You cannot blame a statesman for enforcing the law; you must blame those who do not, or you are against the rule of law.

“Sex isn’t a taboo or sin in Hinduism.” This is so naive. How can sex be taboo in monotheistic religions where it is said: “Procreate and populate the earth,” by this token? Is adultery allowed by Hinduism? Is flashing one’s genitals in the street with lecherous intent allowed by Hinduism? Is rape allowed? If these and others are interdicts, there is a notion of taboo. Obscenity and decency are far less cultural than one thinks.

Defilement of a sacred object is to use or represent it used for a purpose other than its legitimate religious use. This is why people who say that in Hinduism sex is not taboo are far off the mark anyway. If the Gita were represented as serving as a stool for a character to step on and reach an object in the higher parts of a cupboard, that would be another form of defilement although the character’s action is per se not sinful. Even if this use of the religious book as such would be permitted, the representation of such an action is defilement. They say the Gita is pressed by an actress against her naked bosom during a sex scene. In the stool example, using the book in this way in case of need may remain a private act, but a film made with such a scene would be prima facie defilement – even if using stools is not a sin – because it is intended by the film maker to have the book seen in such derision by all viewers. The malicious intent is obvious, this is derision. It has nothing to do with the sexual values contained in the book; this silly argument amounts to saying it is fine to urinate on people because urinating is not a sin.

At least the Indian authorities should summon the maker and producers to ask them what their intent was with this scene. The stool example: If a film showed a man stepping on his holy book to reach some object that saves his life, while praying for forgiveness, the message conveyed would be in conformity with faith. Here there is not a word from the source of speech as to their intent with using the Gita in this way. If they mean the Gita is erotic poetry designed by its makers to be read for arousal in sexual mystics, the authorities are still allowed to declare that the Gita is not such a prop according to the general understanding of the people, and that this answer is nothing but a bad excuse by callous and/or malicious unbelievers.

In the film’s trailer, the eponym character is called by another man a “womanizer.” One of this womanizer’s girlfriends or affairs, therefore, uses the Gita as a sex prop. What can be the message conveyed by this context? A womanizer’s extramarital affair is a woman of disrepute or scorn according to all moral standards we can think of. Therefore, the Gita is shown utilized by a morally dubious woman, perhaps some prostitute; this is a disreputable usage in conformity with the female’s disreputableness. Consequently, the Gita is shown defiled by some manic harlot, and this showing is itself defilement absent a consistent explanation, which the Indian authorities are due to ask according to Indian law.

– Watch the movie before jumping to conclusions.

Absolutely no need to watch this piece of trash to reach the proper conclusions from reliable reports. If I were to watch all contemptible movies before I make comments, I would be as much a supporter of these films, by patronizing theaters or platforms, as a detractor; therefore, the suggestion is extremely silly.

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Of Threats and Cowards

FBI Shoots Utah Man After Threat to Kill Biden, Craig Robertson Death Ammo For Trump Far-right Base? (Hindustan Times, Aug) – One user commented: “People think you can say anything on social media…a threat is a threat. I obviously don’t know the full circumstances but, if he pointed a weapon at an agent, then there was only going to be one outcome.”

A threat must be a “true threat,” or it is protected speech (First Amendment). Were the man’s threats true threats? A man giving a phone call to the white house saying “I am coming to assassinate the president” (John Andrew Bazor Jr’s words, according to the FBI) may be treated as a true threat, as per the law. A man venting his anger on the internet is exercising his freedom of speech. An FBI that cannot see the difference is an instrument of tyranny.

– The man had a plan to get camo and a sniper and try to take out the president. Seems like a valid threat.

What was the man’s age again? Do you know shooters of that age in active service? However, I feel there might be some “true threats,” in the technical sense, in the man’s writings, because of a crescendo of specifics, after the first FBI raid on his home. Clearly, he was incensed after the trampling of his constitutional freedom of speech by a petty bureaucracy, which led him to grief and insurrectional rhetoric. He had been provoked, his freedom of speech had been challenged by control freaks with badges, so he felt the need to assert his freedom in new, unprecedented ways (for decades of his life this man had never called attention on him with internet posts). Seeing the crescendo of specifics in the man’s posts, the FBI took it personally, they could not endure the verbal attacks. Now the man’s dead. This kind of dynamics would not happen under a good government. All in all, a fair trial would have cleared Craig Robertson, because he was provoked, his freedoms were challenged by a wicked administration.

It is a fact that the Biden administration is always talking of opponents as outlaws, and this challenge to constitutional liberties is a mistake that grants insurrectional speech a judicial blanket. To say nothing of the fact that a threat that no one can reasonably think can be carried out (fancying a 70 something, disabled sharpshooter, for instance) is never a true threat; in fact, people who call this a true threat show themselves as chicken.

To sum it up, “a threat is a threat” is dead wrong because the First Amendment protects “threats” that are not “true threats” but a fancy of the administration. Among the words quoted as threats by the media (HT video) is “You have no idea how close your agents came to bang,” and as a media quotes it, certainly they got it in a file of threats alleged by the FBI. The meaning of these words, in more formal English, is: “Unbeknownst to them, I nearly killed your agents.” Although these words may infuriate said agents, and, due to their esprit de corps, the whole FBI, it is not a threat at all, because threats are about the future, not the past. Therefore, among the alleged threats, this one is an obvious mistake, a very obvious one, which casts doubt on the whole file and on an administration that tends to call threats, in order to criminalize it, all speech that unnerves its agents. This is a bad administration, a killer administration.

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Experts in Election Rigging

Political Parties in Taiwan Protest Against Lai Ching-Te’s “Transit” Trip to U.S. (CCTV Video News Agency, Aug)

As the United States is denouncing the One China principle, there is no hope of a political solution. The U.S. will interfere in elections to ensure that the separatist party always gets the upper hand, as she has done time and again in numerous elections abroad (recently in Pakistan, with the no-confidence vote against Imran Khan, as exposed by leaked documents). Soon such protests as shown in CCTV’s video will be banned in Taiwan, in the name of the rule of law, of course…

Lai is in the U.S. to discuss a joint operation to rig the coming elections in Taiwan. That the U.S. rigs elections abroad is documented. (In parentheses, with so much expertise in election rigging, it was inevitable that one day some would find it expedient to use these skills at home.)

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The harmony of hate speech laws
with state discrimination and prior censorship

Complement to Law 32: Hate-speech-law countries v. free-speech countries & Law 37: On Swedish Discrimination.

‘After Ukraine, Next We Will…’: Chechen Leader [Ramzan Kadyrov] Threatens To Punish West For Quran Burnings. (Hindustan Times, Aug)

Said nations are failed systems, which claim to be inclusive but cannot accept religions as they are. In fact, they are atheistic absolutism. – When inclusiveness is your ideal but you can’t live up to it, you must leave the scene, disappear. Get lost.

Often, I read, from Indian and other Islamophobiacs, the same reasoning, which uses a comparison with Gulf monarchies, for instance Saudi Arabia, which do not accommodate religions beside Islam. As if the Indian and other national constitutions were contracts with Saudi Arabia! Saudi Arabia is a sovereign state and India another sovereign state, each of them having a state constitution of its own. If the Indian constitution says that the country is inclusive and accommodates different religions, it does not make this dependent on what Saudi Arabia does according to the latter’s constitution, which would be the case if said principles depended on the conduct of parties to a contract. The Indian constitution is inclusive and, if you disagree with this, then you have a problem with the Indian constitution, and Saudi Arabia is actually your model (but with another religion or lack thereof). You need a change in your own constitution.

I

Preliminary remark: Part I, (ii) and (iii), is a reasoning based on a likely partial description of the situation, serving as general considerations on devious ways of state discrimination; Part II, (iv) and (v), completes the description with important elements, which, if not mere appearances, might clear the Swedish government of the suspicions raised in Part I, although at this juncture it is not possible to be definite about this. Namely, Part I focuses on a situation where the man who burns copies of the Quran is not prosecuted (the decision of prosecuting authorities is still pending); Part II presents the legal rationale behind the man’s not being arrested or prevented from burning Qurans despite formal charges for hate speech filed against him.

(ii)

The excuse of Swedish authorities, namely “freedom of expression,” is lame, and even offensive, precisely because freedom of expression has not prevented the Swedish legislator from voting hate speech laws in which groups based on religious faith (trosbekännelse) are said to be protected from hate speech. Therefore, when the Swedish authorities tolerate hate speech against Islam in the form of Quran burning, the message is that hate speech is a crime except when it targets Muslims. That is, the Swedish government is blatantly discriminatory against Muslims. In a society where not a single form of speech would be criminalized as hate speech, the excuse would be relevant; here it is an insult to Muslims compounded to the existing state discrimination against Muslims through the use (and lack of it) of the national hate speech legislation.

– All religions are treated the same in Sweden.

Either all religions are treated the same, then the law article regarding religions is not implemented, and the question is both: why and how is this consistent with the rule of law? Or Islam is discriminated against. Assuming my contender is right, the Swedish authorities then discriminate against all religions as opposed to other protected minorities such as those based on race/ethnicity or sexual orientation. They ignore the hate speech legislation when hate speech targets religious groups, and this is a violation of the national law that expressly protects religious groups (groups based on trosbekännelse). It does not make Muslims’ anger less justified. They deserve a redress, and the government is remiss in ignoring their demand. Sweden passed such hate speech laws and is bound by its legislation.

Overlooking hate speech against religious groups while claiming to abide by a law saying that religious groups, among others, are protected by law against hate speech, they are hatemongers and enemies of the laws. The people we are talking about claim, in fact, to be entitled to act arbitrarily when they are bound to execute the law (executive power). It is Swedish law that grants protection to, among other religious and various other sorts of groups, Muslims against anyone’s talking about them as uncivilized and what not. That the executive power dares to claim that freedom of speech makes it legally impossible to act when freedom of speech has not prevented a law that compels them to act, marks them as outcasts. Those who have the duty to execute the law, its guardians, are the ones who trample it by ignoring it.

Furthermore, whatever one’s opinion is on, for instance, judicial stoning, the Swedish law does not include this or the opposite opinion in its purview. If one’s condemnation of stoning leads one to hateful speech, one is prosecutable and must be prosecuted, even if stoning were morally repugnant to all Swedes, for the simple reason that this feeling is not compelled by law, whereas incitement based upon it is prohibited. – Capital punishment, as a legal penalty, is not murder by any definition available. Some consider that a legislation including capital punishment does not respect human rights, but even this is not the conflation my contender then tried to make. Advocating for a legislative change introducing capital punishment is not prohibited by Swedish legislation, and if someone claimed that such advocacy should be prosecuted as incitement to murder, he might find some listeners, certainly, among the crackpots.

(iii)

“Criticizing a religion by burning a book,” a phrase uttered by someone who considers that the man who burns copies of the Quran is not guilty of hate speech, is most ridiculous. If such acts are legitimate criticism, nothing can be called hate or incitement. This is devious, asking not, squarely, for a repeal of the law but, in fact, for a discriminatory implementation depriving some of its protection. Burning, same as kicking, slashing, tearing apart, trampling, is not mere criticism; it is beyond criticism, it affords no counter speech, it is a mere nonverbal act of hate; and this, if need be, is evidenced by the fact that these acts fall under the label of desecration when done on national symbols such as flags. Even though flag desecration has been decriminalized in Sweden (1971), this decriminalization does not question the fact that said acts are offensive, outrageous; it only means that outrage to the national flag must not be opposed to freedom of speech. Therefore, when we talk, instead of the national flag, of a group expressly protected by a hate speech law, of course these outrageous acts fall within the purview of the law and are prohibited, and they deserve the greatest penalty available due to the particularly heinous form of hateful speech they represent.

That would be the dastardliest act of government if, because the national hate speech law protects religions from hate speech, and this government wants to persecute Muslims, it denied that Islam is a religion and now called it an ideology.

“The [Swedish] law criminalizes expression considered to be hate speech and prohibits threats or statements of contempt for a group or member of a group based on race, color, national or ethnic origin, religious belief [emphasis ours], or sexual orientation. Penalties for hate speech range from fines to a maximum of four years in prison. In addition the country’s courts have held that it is illegal to wear xenophobic symbols or racist paraphernalia or to display signs and banners with inflammatory symbols at rallies.” (U.S. Department of State: Report on Sweden) Talk about freedom of speech if you wish, Sweden is one of the most repressive countries in Europe regarding speech: “four years in prison”! In comparison, penalty for hate speech in France is a maximum of one year. And we will leave aside Sweden’s lèse-majesté laws criminalizing speech against the royal family. That such people dare to excuse their apathy with the mantra “freedom of speech” shows an abyss of depravity and shamelessness.

That Sweden is a liberal country is a myth. The only thing liberal about Sweden is that it was one of the first countries to decriminalize pornography (after Denmark), as they thought people watched porn just because it was forbidden, which was a stupidity. That such a bureaucratic country, with one of the highest numbers of civil servants depending on the state for their livelihood, can parade as a beacon of liberty, shows a high level of self-delusion. Of course, such a country as this has no tolerance for offensive speech, and its hate speech legislation is unsurprisingly one of the worst in the European Union. Swedish courts seem to be more liberal in that respect, however, as shown by the Pastor Åke Green case. On this case, two remarks. 1) “Homosexuality is a disease, a cancerous growth in the society” is not hate speech against homosexuals according to the Swedish supreme court. However, in its sibylline reasoning, the court seems to be excusing the speech on the fact that Åke Green is a pastor of a Christian denomination. Therefore, the chilling effect of the law on speech is not abated for ordinary people. 2) This seemingly liberal court decision (liberal in the sense of tolerating offensive speech) is a mere appearance. While the law remains in full force, this decision may create in observers the feeling that so-called liberal Swedes have a liberal approach to their hate speech law, but not at all: That such speech would not be condemned with (a maximum of) 4 years imprisonment when made by an ordinary citizen, or a Muslim, rather than a Christian pastor, is unpredictable.

In this most liberal country, you’re an adult at 18 but you can’t buy alcohol if you’re under 20. Alcohol is bought at state-owned dealers only. In this most liberal country, paying for a prostitute is a crime (even though offensive material such as filmed pornography, which requires pacta turpia to be made, is legal). This most liberal country has one of the most repressive legislations on drugs. And so on. How can words be distorted to such extent? Where does the legend of a liberal Sweden come from? I may approve of some of these laws, but I would blush at calling them liberal. All in all, if Swedes can call themselves liberal, I guess they can say that labelling someone a cancerous growth is not contemptuous and that Islam is not a religious belief as well…

II

(iv)

The current situation in Sweden is as follows. The Iraqi man on a Quran burning spree in Sweden will actually face trials for hate speech. What the Swedish government excuses by alleging freedom of speech is not, therefore, its not prosecuting the man but its not exerting prior restraint on the man’s acts, and this because free speech is construed as allowing criminal prosecution of speech once it is made, but not allowing prior censorship. The government claims it cannot stop a felon on a crime spree because his crime is a speech crime. The man will be duly summoned before a court in a couple of months, but in the meantime the authorities cannot, the government says, stop the felon, because of freedom of speech. In sum, 1) the man whom some claim is not guilty of hate speech will be tried for hate speech; 2) the government’s excuse (“freedom of speech”) has nothing to do with the fact that the government would think that Quran burning is definitely not hate speech but with the fact that the government could not, according to its spokespersons, stop a felon on a crime spree insofar as his crime is speech. The Swedish government repeats the “freedom of speech” mantra, not because it thinks the man is clear of criminal, illegal hate speech, but because it claims that, the crime being speech, freedom of speech prevents the authorities from arresting him preventively.

“Swedish police have allowed his demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, while filing preliminary hate speech charges against him.” (Crux, Aug) Swedish police allow, “citing freedom of speech,” demonstrations that they consider to be hate speech, that is, illegal speech. If you cite freedom of speech but your laws, although your constitution claims to guarantee freedom of speech, do not allow hate speech, then, obviously, you cannot cite freedom of speech in presence of hate speech. As, in Sweden, not all speech is free, how can Swedish police cite freedom of speech to allow speech that is not allowed? What an excuse is this? As hate speech is a crime, police must treat hate speech as a crime, rather than allowing a crime to be committed by citing freedom of speech. – Is this, what we are suggesting, prior administrative censorship? Yes, it is. Look at France, where criminalized speech is treated administratively with website termination, organization statute cancellation, and scores of other police tools. France is a member of the European Council (European Convention on Human Rights) same as Sweden.

– Wrong. He is granted the right to demonstrate because of the *right to demonstrate*. It is what was done at the demonstration which is tried in a court, to sort it out juridically, the police has no expertise in this area, and the police don’t make judgement calls – they follow Swedish law.

There are no hate speech laws in Sweden, it has been tried for “hets mot folkgrupp,” best translated as “incitement against ethnic group.” It is not illegal to feel or express hatred. It is illegal to incite violence against a specific group. It’s impossible to make a general claim, since every case has its unique circumstances. But since this is an attack on Islam as a religion, and not incitement against Muslims as a group, it doesn’t fall under this law.

1) The Swedish law is a typical “hate speech law,” a label that includes all laws criminalizing “group libel,” if one wants to use a more technical term, the term “hate” being used primarily by the promoters of such laws. What my contender here translates as incitement against a group is of course the same as group libel. If we did not call the Swedish law a hate speech law, there would be no reason to talk of hate speech laws elsewhere either, since all these laws are the same. Please note, also, that the above quoted U.S. Department of State correctly stresses that the Swedish law criminalizes “statements of contempt.”

2) A folkgrupp is not an “ethnic group,” since the Swedish law criminalizes group libel for all sorts of groups, based not only on race and ethnicity, but also, for instance, on sexual orientation and religious belief. A folkgrupp is a group of people or category of people.

3) The distinction between a religion and its members is nonsensical. This is as if one said that libeling “homosexuality” is permitted while libeling “homosexuals” is a crime; if such an escape way were allowed, group libel could not be indicted at all, the law could not be implemented. This interpretation, therefore, tries to empty out the law, which is not allowed: laws must be interpreted in such a way that their interpretation maintains the laws rather than cancel them (one cannot interpret laws away).

4) “Every case has its unique circumstances” is true for all kinds of laws, or, more precisely, for the whole legislation. Yet general claims must be possible, otherwise people would not know what is allowed and what is not. This claim smacks of ignorance about basic legal principles. If it is true, however, that general claims cannot be made about group libel (hate speech), then these laws are particularly obnoxious: speech is chilled for lack of certainty about the frontiers of legality. My contender may be right, but then he should draw the right conclusion too, which is that these laws must be repealed immediately.

5) The right to demonstrate is a right of speech; the Swedish government talked of the case as a speech issue rather than the narrower issue of right of demonstration. Law enforcement forces defer crimes to courts but also, as a rule, prevent crime. In the case of speech crimes, and to the best of my knowledge only in this case, and in Sweden, the police will not intend to prevent a crime, will let it happen, and then defer the “innocent until proven guilty by a court” (as always) criminal to a court for judgment. “This area,” in which, according to my contender, the police has no expertise, is nothing but the area of what crimes are according to the legislation, therefore the police has an obvious expertise. When a demonstration is planned, the administration is informed beforehand of its character and intent: if the object of a demonstration is illegal, in all countries that I know the demonstration is not allowed. In Sweden, it is allowed (“Swedish police have allowed his demonstrations”), although the police file charges after the event, knowing beforehand they would, given the prior declaration of intent by the organizer of the demonstration.

The remark smacked of ignorance (because unique circumstances are the general rule of legal cases, so they cannot serve any purpose in a discussion about the particular case of group libel) or was correctly pointing at a fatal flaw in these laws, namely, that no one knows for sure what they allow and what they forbid, which runs into a basic requirement of all laws.

As religious groups are mentioned among other sorts of groups, quite different in nature, they must be treated just the same as race and so on. All named groups are protected by the law, that is, they all deserve the same protection. If someone hates the ideas of Islam, and that transpires in his speech when he is talking of Islam, he is guilty of group libel.

“The law should not be there in the first place.” Yet it is there, so, in the name of the rule of law, one must enforce it squarely and fairly, not take the opportunity to discriminate through biased enforcement, until it is repealed. A repeal belongs to the political and legislative debate, not to police and judicial practice (beyond constitutional review). My warning is for those who try to neutralize the law regarding Muslims, while they would, with this legislative weapon, continue to smash all speech against other groups. If you don’t believe that this is a real temptation today, you are not a good observer of European societies.

(v)

The man is about to be tried for hate speech and his defense, that his speech is about Islam, not Muslims, is unlikely to be found of any worth [see (iii) 3)]. If this defense were acceptable, the article protecting religious groups from hate speech would be of no avail because then people would only need to say Islam rather than Muslims to avoid the due criminal penalties for hate speech (which can be 4 years in prison), and that would be absurd. The law, by itself, is harsh. What the authorities claim, however, is that, although the man will be tried in a couple of months, they cannot stop him, preventively, from committing other such crimes (Quran burning as hate speech) because these crimes are speech crimes that cannot be prevented administratively, that is, by police measures, as this would be censorship (whereas an ex post trial and indictment for speech by an independent court is considered to be compatible with freedom of speech).

In (some, probably most) other European countries with hate speech laws, this is not the same, police can take preventive and enforcement measures as with all other types of crime. In France, for instance, the administration can shut down a mosque (it already happened) when an imam is said by the authorities to make hateful preaches, that is, the police punish the whole local community by depriving it of its place of worship as a measure of enforcement of the hate speech legislation… In that respect, Swedes take the principles of freedom of speech a little more seriously; namely, allowing the executive power to enforce a speech-repressive law like any other law is government censorship, which is not supposed to occur in countries that vindicate free speech. However, if it is a crime in the first place according to the law, police are not supposed to let crimes be committed without intervening, as a rule. There is an ambiguity, most probably this police non-intervention rule for speech crimes is not absolute and the police could find a legal basis for preventing the man from burning Qurans. I am inclined to think there is a bias in law enforcement here. In fact, I believe the authorities in Sweden have not made up their mind whether Quran burning is or should be illegal, even though it reasonably cannot be denied that it is. I am afraid their intention is to make an exception with Islam, namely, to allow Swedish people to insult and offend Muslims while other religious (and all other protected) groups would remain protected. A form of discrimination.

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Décolonisation avancée

I

France Evacuates Citizens From Niger After Pro-Putin Protests At Embassy. (HT, Aug)

Two days ago, the French authorities “vowed immediate and uncompromising action if French citizens or interests were attacked” in Niger. (This, in parentheses, was said when French interests had already been attacked in Niger, with the storming of the French embassy by a mob.) Today they withdraw French citizens from Niger. Seen in this light, the earlier warning to the junta (do not let French citizens be attacked or…) was mere bluff. As France uttered a warning, she should have kept her citizens in Niger, since the warning was supposed to be a shield for her citizens, or what was it? French citizens in Niger had the shield of French power guaranteed by the French authorities, namely the presidency. But now, as France decides to evacuate her citizens from Niger, the authorities are implicitly admitting that the presidential warning was bluff, hot air. This is pathetic.

On ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States)’s threat of military intervention. That an “Economic Community” morphs overnight into a military organization suggests that all this is dictated by powers abroad. An economic community is based on economic treaties, these are not political or military treaties. The organization should change its name first, because in case its treaties stipulate such military interventions, they are not merely economic treaties and the organization’s name is deceptive, the organization is not merely an economic community. An organization with a deceptive name has no legitimacy, and on the other hand individual states aiming at a military alliance cannot use the frame of an economic community for military purposes.

(ii) FR

Il y a trois jours, la présidence française menaçait d’une réponse « immédiate et intraitable » toute attaque contre les citoyens et les intérêts français au Niger. (Ces propos intervenaient d’ailleurs après que les intérêts français avaient été attaqués au Niger, avec l’assaut de l’ambassade française par une foule déchaînée.) Aujourd’hui, la France rapatrie ses citoyens. C’est la réponse immédiate et intraitable ? Les propos de la présidence française suivis de cette évacuation couvrent la France de ridicule. Les citoyens français auraient dû se sentir en sécurité au Niger puisque la présidence menaçait ceux qui chercheraient à les attaquer. C’est une nouvelle démonstration que la parole de la France ne pèse rien, démonstration apportée cette fois par la France elle-même : personne ne croit que les menaces présidentielles puissent avoir le moindre effet dissuasif.

II

La Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) a déjà sanctionné et suspendu le Mali en 2020, la Guinée en 2021 et le Burkina Faso en 2022. Pourquoi n’a-t-elle pas menacé ces pays d’une intervention militaire et le fait-elle seulement avec le Niger aujourd’hui ? Quel est le sens de cette escalade ?

Les menaces de la CEDEAO laissent penser que les États membres de l’organisation ont soutenu la campagne électorale de Bazoum et qu’ils cherchent à présent à rétablir « leur » candidat. Auraient-ils profité de lacunes dans la législation nigérienne sur le financement des partis politiques et des campagnes électorales ? Quand ils réclament le retour à l’ordre constitutionnel, il convient de souligner que des financements occultes sont déjà une violation de l’ordre constitutionnel. Des soutiens du nouveau Conseil national ont expliqué que Bazoum avait payé des électeurs, une pratique contraire aux principes d’un ordre constitutionnel digne de ce nom. Aucune réponse n’a été apportée à ces accusations graves, comme s’il fallait considérer que la pratique va de soi dans ces pays, alors que c’est une cause de nullité, tout comme les financements occultes étrangers. Les États occidentaux parlent d’ordre constitutionnel au Niger en acceptant des pratiques qui, dans ces propres États, conduiraient à l’annulation des élections. Ce n’est pas sérieux.

Par ailleurs, un président démocratiquement élu dans un pays où le taux d’illettrisme est de 73 %, c’est cela que défend la France.

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Pourquoi Dupond-Moretti est désormais un maillon faible du gouvernement. (Europe 1, juillet)

Il y a des présumés innocents en détention provisoire et d’autres au gouvernement. Où est le problème ? – Plaisanterie à part, n’est-il pas ahurissant qu’un ministre se prévale de la présomption d’innocence pour rester au gouvernement, quand la présomption d’innocence n’empêche pas que des gens soient privés de liberté et placés en détention ? C’est à couper le souffle.

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Violences sur Hedi : maintien en détention requis pour le policier. (Europe 1, juillet 2023)

Hier, une ancienne présidente du Syndicat de la magistrature affirmait, sur une chaîne d’information, qu’un policier est comme tout autre citoyen devant la justice. Dans un système où le principe constitutionnel de séparation des pouvoirs se traduit par une « séparation des autorités administratives et judiciaires » et par l’existence d’une juridiction administrative distincte des juridictions judiciaires, cette affirmation est principiellement fausse. Un policier est un représentant de l’État dans l’exercice de la puissance publique, et nous pourrions donc voir le préfet adresser un déclinatoire de compétence au tribunal judiciaire pour le dessaisir de l’affaire et la porter devant un juge administratif, où elle serait jugée comme une faute de service, si ce n’est qu’en la matière le juge administratif a lui-même entendu dégager les contours d’une faute personnelle des agents qui permet la mise en cause de ceux-ci devant les tribunaux judiciaires mais qui n’avait rien d’évident a priori, dans un tel système, puisqu’elle n’est apparue qu’a posteriori.

(Entre parenthèses, la seule fois où j’ai vu un crâne décalotté comme celui de Hedi, c’était l’image d’un cousin d’Ahed Tamimi, Mohammed Tamimi, après un passage de l’armée israélienne. Il serait regrettable que la police française traitât les Français comme des Palestiniens sous occupation, c’est-à-dire comme si c’était une armée d’occupation.)

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Cinq Américains bientôt autorisés à quitter l’Iran après le déblocage des fonds iraniens. (CGTN Français)

En résumé, les États-Unis achètent à l’Iran la liberté de citoyens américains avec l’argent de l’Iran.

– Non, c’est un échange de prisonniers plus des fonds iraniens débloqués !

C’est mieux que si c’était pire. Ce que j’ai voulu dire, c’est que les actifs financiers de l’Iran sont sa propriété et que la saisie de la propriété d’autrui s’appelle du vol. En supposant même que cette saisie ne serve pas son auteur à s’enrichir directement (si l’auteur ne comptabilise pas ces fonds et n’en fait rien), elle appauvrit le propriétaire légitime des fonds (dont le droit de propriété est de fait suspendu), et par conséquent, dans la relation entre les deux, l’un est après la saisie plus riche par rapport à l’autre du fait de l’appauvrissement (perte de propriété) de ce dernier. La saisie est donc une cause d’enrichissement dans la relation bilatérale de l’auteur de la saisie, une cause d’appauvrissement de la victime vis-à-vis de tous. Appauvrir quelqu’un est une cause d’enrichissement sans augmentation de capital propre compte tenu de la relativité des notions de richesse et pauvreté. Ces réflexions ne préjugent en rien du statut légal, aux États-Unis, des fonds iraniens saisis, lequel statut, pour l’ignorant que je suis, pourrait être que cet argent est placé et produit un rendement dont les États-Unis bénéficient, qu’en sais-je ? Auquel cas il n’y aurait même pas besoin de recourir à cette notion d’enrichissement indirect que je viens de développer, car la saisie serait alors la cause d’un enrichissement direct par augmentation du capital mobilisable.

Du point de vue de la loi, et en nous plaçant dans le contexte américain, la saisie de propriété n’est pas un vol, quand l’État la pratique, dans trois hypothèses dont une au moins est problématique. 1) La première est la saisie de propriété immobilière dans un but d’intérêt général et moyennant compensation financière : c’est la théorie de l’« eminent domain » (en France, expropriation pour cause d’utilité publique). 2) La deuxième est la saisie des biens de personnes condamnées par la justice : c’est la théorie de la « forfeiture » (en France, confiscation). 3) La troisième est celle qui nous occupe, et qui s’appuie sur des lois de sauvegarde de l’intérêt national. Or, quand la loi affecte un État souverain comme l’Iran, la saisie d’actifs s’inscrit dans une relation de souverain à souverain, transposition de celle de sujet de droit à sujet de droit, et la saisie unilatérale est donc un vol, même quand une loi nationale américaine le prévoit.